First in chaos: A litigious summer for Italian leagues

By Rob Hughes International Herald Tribune WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2005

Italy would struggle nowadays to boast that its soccer clubs are the best run in Europe - but in conspiracy, corruption and confusion, it is top of the league.

 

Until late Tuesday, the Italian federation, the FIGC, had still not released the fixtures for Serie A and Serie B, although the new season is due to kick off on Aug. 27.

 

Imagine the chaos. Think of the tifosi, the fans who do not know where, when or how to book a ticket or plan their journeys for the 2005-6 campaign. Their limbo is a symptom of a national sport in crises.

 

AC Milan is owned by Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi. Inter Milan is bankrolled by the son of an oil baron. Juventus runs under the patronage of the Agnelli family. Those clubs contest the Champions League as vigorously as Real Madrid or Barcelona, Chelsea, Arsenal or Manchester United. Yet they do not, officially, have a clue which teams they will face in the Italian league less than two weeks from now.

 

To the cloak of conspiracy, add fiasco.

 

Judge Alvaro Vigotti in Genoa last week ordered the league not to issue the playing schedule until he rules on an appeal by Genoa against its demotion for allegedly fixing the last Serie B match of last season - a match that led to Genoa's return to the top division for the first time in 10 years.

 

The judge's verdict is expected later this week.

 

Meanwhile, Franco Carraro, the former mayor of Rome and now president of Italy's soccer federation, insisted that his committee would publish and be damned. "Postponement is impossible," he said. "It would violate the rules set out by the government, by the Italian Olympic Committee and by FIFA."

 

He condemns Genoa's recourse to civil courts as seriously damaging to Italian football "on all sporting, moral and economic levels."

 

On Genoa's streets and in the stadium, violence simmers. Some fanatics wreaked havoc in their city; some managed to have a cup match abandoned after 21 minutes by throwing flares onto the pitch.

 

La violenza goes with la corruzione.

 

According to the police, Genoa bribed its way to victory against Venezia last season. Venezia's general manager was stopped by the police as he drove away from the Milan offices of Enrico Preziosi, the Genoa president, days after the match.

 

Allegedly, the Venezia official had a suitcase containing €250,000, or $310,000, which he claimed was a down payment on the transfer of Ruben Maldonado, a Venezia player. However, the police confronted him with taped telephone conversations between Genoa's president, his son and Venezia's general manager before the game.

 

Eight men, including players and officials of both clubs, are charged with "sporting fraud."

 

Part of the Genoa defense is that lawyers for the club found handwritten notes in a trash can that show the sporting officials were biased against Genoa.

 

It is all too familiar. The crime of "sporting fraud" surfaced in 1980 against AC Milan and Lazio, which were demoted to Serie B because players were caught fixing matches for payment from a betting cartel. Paolo Rossi, a striker whom Gianni Agnelli admiringly called "the most magnificent goal thief," was one of 20 players banned for three seasons.

 

He ended up banned for only two. He was granted amnesty because Italy needed him for the 1982 World Cup - which Italy won, with Rossi the tournament's top scorer.

 

So there is history of conspiracy, and of pragmatism undoing the rule of soccer's authority.

 

Today that is compounded by the incompetence of the clubs' financial affairs. Not only is Genoa being demoted to the third division instead of promoted to Serie A, but Torino, the third team in last season's Serie B, is barred from going up because its finances are in a tawdry state.

 

That left Empoli, the second finisher in Serie B, as the only team among the top three to be promoted. Perugia, the fourth finisher in Serie B, was dropped a division because its financial housekeeping is also wretched. Treviso and Ascoli were called Tuesday from fifth and six place in Serie B to the top flight.

 

Bologna, which lost the relegation playoff, was kept in the second division. It had had a remote hope of being promoted back to Serie A because of inadequate bookkeeping by Reggina.

 

This summer of litigation, suspicion and insolvency is a mirror of the last four in Italy, all of which have given the fans little hope of knowing exactly when the season will start. And when it does, those supporters may not be sure that what they are watching is pure sport.

 

Small wonder that Juventus, the champion of Italy, has resorted to trying to fill the huge empty spaces in its Delle Alpi stadium by a form of legitimate bribery. For any male who pays €2,025 for a season ticket, the club offers a female companion and a bambino to be allowed in for the equivalent of €1 per game, less than the price of a coffee.

 

It is hard to imagine that paying the wages of Patrick Vieira, the newest Juventus recruit.

 

It is hard to see what has changed since 1999, when a professional player confessed in a letter to the magazine Famiglia Cristiana: "I have sold myself in an important match. The flow of money has killed everything, and who will forgive me for distorting the championship?"

 

The name of that player? Possibly only he knows. He wrote anonymously, though his message might apply to scores of others.

 

 

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